Jason McCartney MP

Yesterday in Parliament, Richard Bacon, a Conservative backbencher, tried to introduce a Bill which would repeal the Human Rights Act 1998. One of Mr Bacon's lines of argument was that the legal requirement for Ministers to amend legislation - without a vote in Parliament - in order to comply with European human rights legislation - is "fundamentally undemocratic":

"Under section 10, a Minister of the Crown may make such amendments to primary legislation as are considered necessary to enable the incompatibility to be removed by the simple expedient of making an order. In effect, because the accepted practice is that the United Kingdom observes its international obligations, a supranational court can impose its will against ours. In my view this is fundamentally undemocratic."

Mr Bacon also compellingly argued that the controversial social issues that judges often like to get involved in should be decided by "elected representatives and not by unelected judges":

"[T]here is no point in belonging to a club if one is not prepared to obey its rules. The solution is therefore not to defy judgments of the Court, but rather to remove the power of the Court over us. ... Judges do not have access to a tablet of stone not available to the rest of us which enables them to discern what our people need better than we can possibly do as their elected, fallible, corrigible representatives. There is no set of values that are so universally agreed that we can appeal to them as a useful final arbiter. In the end they will always be shown up as either uselessly vague or controversially specific. Questions of major social policy, whether on abortion, capital punishment, the right to bear firearms or workers rights, should ultimately be decided by elected representatives and not by unelected judges."

Guido Fawkes has a list of new Conservative members of Select Committees, from Graham Brady's office. Mr Brady explains: "For the following committees I have received the same number of nominations as there are vacancies, the following are therefore elected". The appointments are:

Communities and Local Government

John Stevenson (Carlisle), replacing George Hollingbery (Meon Valley), who became PPS to Theresa May at the reshuffle.

Education

Chris Skidmore (Kingswood), replacing Damian Hinds (East Hampshire), who became PPS to Mark Francois, the Minister of State for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans.

Health

Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole), replacing Dr Daniel Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich), who was made the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Health Services.

Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart of the University of Nottingham have released a new pamplet - "The Bumper Book of Coalition Rebellions", which documents the 239 backbench rebellions so far in this Parliament, in which 544 votes have been held.

The pamplet takes us from the first rebellion, on the government’s control of time in the Commons, to the last, on Sunday Trading during the Olympics. This Parliament has seen more rebellions by government MPs than in any other session in the post-war era. As "The Bumper Book" says, "It comfortably beats the previous record of 128, held by Conservative MPs in the 1971-72 session. Indeed, a figure of 239 is higher than all but three entire post-war parliaments."

In fact, there were more rebellions in the last two years than there were between 1945 and 1966 - a period which saw six Prime Ministers and six parliaments. On a different measure, the "relative rate of rebellion", this session's 239 rebellions constitute a rebellion by Coalition MPs in 44% of divisions, which is a record in post-war parliaments. The 44% figure can be broken down further: Conservative MPs have rebelled in 28% of votes, while Lib Dems have rebelled in 24% of votes.

It is also notable how much of a contrast there is between the 2010-12 session and most first sessions in a parliament. As the pamplet says: "The rebellion rate for coalition MPs collectively is way above all other first sessions in the post-war era (the previous record was 28%, for Labour MPs in the 2005-6 session, as the party entered its third, and most troublesome, parliament under Tony Blair)".

As reported last week, this Parliament has seen more rebellions than during the Major years, and in fact, the 2010 intake has been the most rebellious since at least 1945. The last Parliamentary year has seen Conservative rebellions on issues such as European bailouts, recognising marriage in the tax system, or on law and order matters.

An interesting new post by Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart of the Centre for British Politics at the University of Nottingham's NottsPolitics blog shows just ten Conservative MPs from the 2010 intake are responsible for nearly a quarter of all rebellious votes by Conservative MPs.

Their findings also show:

Tory newcomers have accounted for 31% of rebellious votes cast by all Conservative MPs

Both divisions tonight - on increasing the upper tuition fees limit to £9,000 and on raising the cap on basic tuition fees to £6,000 - saw identical results: 323 votes in favour and 302 votes against.

Factoring in two tellers from each side, you had 325 MPs backing the Government line and 304 opposing it, meaning that 629 out of a possible 640 MPs participated in the divisions (the remaining ten are accounted for by the 5 Sinn Fein MPs, the Speaker, 3 Deputy Speakers and the vacancy in Oldham East and Saddleworth).

So who voted which way?

IN FAVOUR

Conservatives297 of the 305 Conservative MPs, comprising:

All 77 Ministers and Whips

39 PPSs (no longer including Lee Scott, who resigned to abstain)

181 of the 189 backbenchers

Liberal Democrats28 of the 57 Lib Dem MPs, comprising:

17 of the 18 Ministers and Whips (Chris Huhne being at the conference in Cancun)

Of the two Tory abstainers, as a PPS until yesterday, Lee Scott, has no history of rebellion; meanwhile, Tracey Crouch, who also abstained, has still never actively voted in a division lobby against the government line.

6. Who is your favourite political interviewer/presenter on TV or radio? Ben Erlam for ITV Yorkshire and Carolyn Quinn on Radio 4's PM programme. Carolyn was about to interview me live on the PM programme about my first day as an MP in Westminster just as Gordon Brown was announcing his resignation as PM.

7. If you could run any government department, which would it be and why? Defence - I'm a former RAF Officer; or DCMS - I'm also a former BBC/ITV journalist and a sports nut.

8. Which non-Conservative politician do you most admire? Peter Wishart of the SNP - I was incorrectly told I'd been allocated Peter's Westminster office after 6 weeks of hotdesking. He knew nothing about it but was charm personified and saw the funny side. We are now neighbours in the Upper Committee corridor.

9. Who would you least want to get stuck with in a House of Commons lift? It's already happened - let's just say he's been recently ennobled...

10. If you were in the US, would you be a Republican or a Democrat? Republican.

11. What do you enjoy doing to unwind and relax? Watching Huddersfield Town FC, but it's not always that relaxing.

12. What is your favourite book? George Orwell's 1984.

13. What is your favourite film?Good Night, and Good Luck - George Clooney's atmospheric take on real life story of how a TV journalist took on Senator McCarthy. I also watch Zulu at least once a year.

15. What would be your ideal meal and where would you eat it? A curry with my constituency team at the Monsoon Tandoori in Slaithwaite.

16. What is your favourite holiday destination? Xativa in Spain.

17. What do you most want to achieve during your first term in Parliament? Continue my campaigns for local services in my constituency - post offices, bus services and the return of full maternity care to Huddersfield.

18. Tell us one interesting, unusual or surprising fact about yourself. I was based in Las Vegas with the RAF.

19. Tell us one interesting, unusual or surprising fact about your constituency.
BBC 1's Last of the Summer Wine was filmed in Holmfirth and although the long running series has been pulled, there's now a real vineyard just up the Holme valley.

20. Share with us your most amusing story or favourite anecdote from the campaign trail. Heavy rain caused a couple of the letters to be washed off one of my large banners on a main road. So whilst out canvassing in a busy village centre I called the banner company on my mobile phone, and oblivious to the public in earshot, I proceeded to ask for "a little e, I really need a little e". My campaign manager tapped me on my shoulder and suggested it wasn't a good idea to be saying that in public!

In a maiden speech delivered yesterday, Caroline Nokes, who won Romsey and Southampton North, addressed the subject of building a high-skills economy, which was the topic of yesterday's debate on the Commons:

“Even in an area where we are fortunate to have good schools, an excellent university and companies like Ford committed to Britain’s manufacturing base, there is still a disconnect between what employers want and the skills of our school leavers. It is critical that the two are matched, and that our education system works with employers to make sure there is no skills gap.”

“Of course, building a high-skilled economy is not just about the urban centres of the constituency. There are many beautiful rural villages in the north, where problems are inevitably caused by the lack of high-speed broadband—or indeed any broadband at all—but where there is also a good strong farming tradition. The fact that agriculture is traditional does not mean that it is not high-skilled; far from it. Those skills manage and maintain our countryside and, very important, keep us fed. While focusing on the high-skilled, we must ensure that we do not let Britain’s farming tradition wither."

Meanwhile, Jason McCartney - who gained the West Yorkshire constituency of Colne Valley, talked about the promoting small businesses and the importance of protecting access to service in rural areas:

"Many people say to me—other Members of the House probably hear this too—that we do not make things any more, but I am proud to say that in my constituency we do. It is not on a large scale, but I have a number of enterprising, entrepreneurial and innovative businesses that have set up, sometimes in old mills, to create products that have a niche market and that are exporting around the world… It is these sorts of little enterprises that we, in a high-skilled economy, must try to promote. We have to cut the red tape; we should support them with lower taxes; we must give them the skills in the work force and the local infrastructure so that their workers can live and work locally.

“We have got to support local rural post offices… Post offices, especially the rural ones, are struggling, and our post office network was decimated in the last decade. It is important that we support them, because once they are gone, they are gone. We also need to support things such as rural bus services, so that people can live in my rural communities and work there as well."

He also lamented the recent axeing by the BBC of Last of the Summer Wine, which was set in his constituency

"That gentle comedy about Yorkshire folk, usually going downhill in a bathtub, was very much a mainstay of our television and it helped to promote tourism in my constituency. In Holmfirth, which is just a mile up the road from where I live, we have a Compo’s caff and there is a Wrinkled Stocking café just two doors down from my new constituency office, so we will really miss that opportunity to promote tourism."